Cowboy Sam's Quadruplets

Seton blinked. “Why?”

“It’d be theirs in due time, anyway,” Sam said, eternally optimistic, “and you’d have a better place for your office than that dingy building you’re in now.”

“I like my office,” Seton said. “It’s my own private space.”

“You’d like the ranch better,” Sam told her. “Office and nursery in one.”

She wasn’t going to succumb to the lure he presented. For Sabrina, maybe. But it was a long shot. Seton didn’t know if her sister even liked Jonas.

She’d liked him well enough to make love with him.

“This is terrible,” Seton groaned. “You have no idea the dilemma I’m in.”

“It’s hard pushing the upper end of your ovarian best-by date,” Sam said sympathetically.

“I’m twenty-six, thank you very much,” she retorted. “And that’s not what I meant, anyway. I can’t even imagine myself in bed with you, Sam.”

He grinned. “That’s funny, because I can see myself in bed with you—and liking it. A lot.”

Chapter Four

“I don’t know.” Seton glared at him. “I doubt we’re compatible. I think I’d prefer a more clinical route.”

“Like artificial insemination?” Sam looked depressed. “Give a guy a chance, will you?”

“Clinical might be easier.” The attraction Seton felt for Sam was overwhelming, but she wasn’t about to admit it. It seemed as if the best route was to deny any and all thoughts of sex between them.

One unplanned pregnancy in the McKinley family was enough at the moment.

Sam grabbed her hand across the tabletop and pulled her around to his side, making room for her to sit next to him in the booth. “See, you’re not exactly my polar opposite.”

“I have a feeling I should be pushing away from you like one,” Seton said. “Ask me later if I regret not running like heck.”

“I had you pegged as a girl who likes to be caught.”

“You’d be wrong.” Seton leaned away from him when she noticed Sam checking out her lips. “I was on the cross-country team in high school.”

He brightened. “We need an athletic woman in the family. It’s good for the genes. None of us were much for track.”

Seton sighed. “I don’t think you’re ever serious about anything.”

“There you’d be wrong. I’m serious about everything.”

She shook her head. “Why don’t you just ask Jonas what’s bugging him? Maybe he’s upset about something.”

“He is. He’s been mopey ever since your sister left. It’s like looking at Droopy Dog.”

“I’ll just ask Sabrina if she’ll come visit me and Aunt Corinne.” She knew her sister wouldn’t, though.

“You do that. Maybe it’ll work. In the meantime, I’ll go have blood drawn.”

“You’re serious about this.”

“Very serious. Dead serious.”

Seton looked down at her fingers, then at Sam. “I don’t think so. It’s not going to be easy for me to get pregnant, and if I did, you strike me as the kind of man who’d be determined to drag me to the altar.”

“Well, as you’re not certain you can conceive, we don’t have to worry about a pregnancy yet.” Sam smiled at her. “I say we go for a practice run.”

“Sam.” Seton frowned. “I’m not going to just go jump in bed with you when we haven’t even kissed.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, in plain view of everyone at the Chinese restaurant in Diablo. “Mmm,” he said, “I do love Chinese food.”

She blushed. “I’m sure it’s a rare man who claims to love sake kisses.”

“Eat a fortune cookie and let me kiss you again,” he teased. “Just for comparison.”

Seton stood, looking at him while feeling everything was all wrong. “I can’t do this, Sam.”

“All right,” he said, signing the bill. “Don’t say I didn’t offer you a whale of a deal.”

They walked out together, and she was relieved when he didn’t put his hand at her back. Her mind and heart were both racing, just from thinking about Sam. And Jonas and Sabrina. And the baby. But mostly Sam, and how good his lips had felt against hers.

She hadn’t expected them to feel so sexy.

“Tell you what,” he said, walking her to her car. “I’m going to be at a cute little bunkhouse on my property. If you’re in the mood later to come by and iron out some details, I’ll be there, reading briefs. No worries if you don’t.”

Seton watched as he took her hand and brushed her fingers against his lips. Her pulse quickened, making her nervously aware of how much she liked him. She’d come back to Diablo for this man.

And he was offering her almost everything she’d dreamed of.

Not love, of course. But just about everything else.

Maybe Aunt Corinne is right. Maybe playing it out is the right thing to do.

She couldn’t. Getting involved with Sam would just complicate matters. “I won’t be there,” she told him, and he shrugged.

“You know where the bunkhouse is. No one stays there anymore. Jonas lives in the main house, and when I say lives, I use the term loosely. He’s more like a fireplace vampire. He comes alive to feed horses and then settles back in his Count Dracula position with his tray table in an upright and locked position.”

She looked at Sam. “Would you know if anyone ever used the word eccentric to describe you?”

He laughed. “I’ll be seeing you, Nancy Drew.”

Off he went, as if he had all the confidence in the world that she’d show up. Just because he wanted her to. A snap of his fingers, and the world fell at his feet.

Well, not me, buster.

AT NINE O’CLOCK that night, the sound of pebbles hitting her window pulled Seton from her bed, where she’d been reading a whodunit by one of her favorite authors. She pulled open her window and glanced down to see Sam grinning up at her from the ground below.